Sunday 17 October 2010

The Seed

Jesus put another parable before them, saying "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."

The other parable that inspired this is "The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows, he knows not how."

The gospel is a seed inside of us that grows without us knowing how. It grows quietly, but even though it starts off so small as to be invisible, it becomes large and fruitful within us. But not because we do anything - God makes it grow in us.

There's a great song by Sara Groves which runs "in the hearts of the sons and daughters, this kingdom's coming" which talks about growth happening little by little, as we live our lives, exercise our faith, put our trust in God and allow Him to produce growth in us through the small events in each day.

That's sort of what this doodle is about. And the end result? Gladness!
May that be true for me and you.

2 comments:

  1. That second passage from mark 5 was pretty important to my journey with FINE EDGE. It was kind of how I understood the ministry we did and the effect it has.

    What's really cool (and too little known) is that Jesus is being super poetic here, because mustard trees aren't generally big, they're like a weedy bush that spreads out. The way I heard it was that the birds and branches bit was a comparison to the OT imagery of the Cedars of Lebanon. I think he's saying that the kingdom's power is in spreading out, not in being big and grand... but maybe I'm wrong.

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  2. Oh that's a cool thought Theo... I like that a lot and its definitely in line with other things about the gospel...

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